From the opening gate, Villeneuve asks us to question the motivations and morality of any interloper on Arrakis, be they Harkonnen or Atreides. To shift any sort of frame device from the royal Princess Irulan to the indigenous Chani is to provide a welcome juxtaposition to the frequent focus on noble political power brokers. Herbert draws on the geopolitical tetris between the Middle East and the West in his vision of noble houses feuding over spice, Arrakis’ treasured natural resource.

Dune is, after all, an ecological allegory about the oil wars haunting the modern Middle East. As control of Arrakis transfers to House Atreides, Chani reflects on the Fremen’s suffering at the hands of House Harkonnen, wondering aloud, “Who will our next oppressors be?” This line, newly written for the film, gets at the heart of Herbert’s allegorical vision.

The only significant voiceover we hear in Villeneuve’s Dune is the opening sequence, spoken by Chani. Then we tried to develop ideas that would allow us to feel what their mind-set is without having a voice-over.” The way we adapted this is, first of all, we embraced Paul and Jessica’s point of view and tried to stay as close as possible to those two characters. “We are hearing the thought processes of different characters. “The book is very internal,” Villeneuve told The Los Angeles Times. From removing Princess Irulan to axing the book’s discursive internal monologues, it’s all part of a quest to make something decisively cinematic, not literary. The result is a more fiercely interior experience of Paul’s journey to messianic prominence, well-suited to the Dune newbie awash in Herbert’s strange and complex world. Villeneuve does away with this framing device entirely, allowing us to experience the narrative as Paul lives it. Readers of the novel will remember that chapters are anchored by epigraphs from Princess Irulan (Paul Atreides’ future wife), whose quasi-historical texts about the powerful man Paul will become, written long into the future, foreshadow events mere pages before they unfold. Chia Bella James Farewell, Princess Irulan But how does it relate to its source material? Read on. As Esquire has said, Dune is a masterpiece of a movie.

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